(HealthDayNews) -- Ozone, a colorless, odorless gas, can do a lot of damage to your respiratory system -- especially if you're a child, or your lungs are already weakened by asthma or another respiratory disease.
Formed when chemicals emitted by some burning fuels and certain organic compounds react in sunlight, ozone can be so dangerous that weather reports usually will alert you to when higher-than-usual levels are expected.
Excessive ozone should be avoided, warns Maryland's Department of the Environment, because it can:
- irritate the respiratory system, causing coughing, throat irritation, and chest pains;
- reduce lung function and make deep, vigorous breathing difficult;
- aggravate asthma -- because it makes you more sensitive to allergens, the most common triggers of asthma attacks;
- increase susceptibility to respiratory infections;
- inflame and damage the lining of the lungs -- causing, within a few days, sunburn-like peeling of lung tissue.
Children's respiratory systems are particularly at risk, notably because kids breathe in more air -- and thus more ozone -- than adults per pound of body weight.
People with respiratory diseases that make their lungs more vulnerable to ozone may experience health effects earlier and at lower ozone levels than less sensitive individuals.
